Trump Reaction
So we have a new president-elect. His name is Donald Trump. Very few people would have predicted that he would have been our next president. But he is going to be.
Questions You May Have
What does this say about us as a country?
Wait, what does this say about my co-workers and neighbors?
Wait, there is more. The talk about uneducated White males being the ones who carried Trump doesn’t make mathematical sense; what does that mean?
Where do we go from here?
My Thoughts On A Few Things
Trump Ain’t Dumb
When I look at Donald Trump I unfortunately think that he is a marketing / branding genius.
Watching a documentary on him and Hillary Clinton I saw how Donald Trump was in debt after buying up all this real estate. Everything he bought has his name on it. No one else was going to buy it so the banks realized that he was “too big to fail.” Donald Trump quickly realized that he didn’t need to keep buying property. He understood that he could just sell his name / brand and make tons of money.
I see him as a marketing guys and someone who does whatever it takes to win. Unfortunately that includes leveraging hate.
But was this his intention?
So Trump wins, he gives a speech that is a much kinder, gentler Trump than we’ve seen on the campaign trail. There was no bragging or boasting. No name calling. He actually congratulated Hillary Clinton for her years of service. He called for us to come together as a country.
His speech leads me to a few possible conclusions that all end with, “we will have to wait and see.” Below are a few possibilities.
All I Do Is Win, Win No Matter What
So Donald Trump looked at our country found a target audience, understood their pain, fears and dreams and went all out to create a marketing campaign that promised them everything they every wanted. It was ugly but it was effective in getting him in the White House. The theme song here would be, “We didn’t start the fire, it was always burning.” Donald Trump just preyed on the vulnerability of many Americans. Mostly, White working class folks.
Now that he has won, he is calming down knowing that actually running a country is a little bit different than running an election campaign–or so I hope.
He achieved his goal and now he is actually going to be a president for all americans. We gonna have to just wait and see.
That’s all well and fine but…
giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt that he is going to be a president for all the people doesn’t change the fact that he talked a whole lot of shit that I believe give people permission to be pretty hateful, ignorant and cruel.
Toward women: If men listen and take direction from the president-elect there is going to be tears and nashing of teeth. Imagine men feeling (you may argue they already do) or acting like women are know their property to be groped and grabbed. Where I wrote the word “women” above replace it with the name of your mom, sister, aunt, daughter, etc.
Thousands of boys are / will taking their queue from this guy. They don’t know any better. They are at a crossroad and thinking, “how should I approach this girl?” and then they remember, “oh yeah, I have an example from my president elect.” Innocence quickly becomes ignorance.
Toward Immigrants: building walls, keeping people out of the based on religion. Unfortunately I’ve seen this one play out before he even became president elect. A friend in Virginia had her son in middle school go through and experience where he was told, “If Donald Trump wins you will be deported (I wanna say they mentioned back to Africa).” The kid was tramatized and afraid. Guess what, the kid was also born here and so were his parents. It didn’t matter, it was hurtful and of course the kid came home crying asking if this is true.
Towards people of color: constantly saying the inner cities are hell creates a stereotype that hurts the people who live there and also sets up the people who have no friends of color to think they are automatically better than the other or they have to save them.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to analyze how or why this happened. Here we are.
If I’m honest, I will tell you that I am energized by the fact that if someone like Donald Trump can come out of nowhere and become President of the United States, I do believe anything is possible. Underneath my energy also lives a sense of sadness because someone like Donald Trump who was spitting hate can become president of the United States…in this day and age.
I have been using my energy to educate myself on how our political system works on a grand scale and how it works on a more local scale. I have a feeling that I / we can have more impact from the bottom up instead of top down.
A Few Resources That Have Been Helpful To Me
State and local websites: Here I have been learning about town meetings and how I can get involved. I also got clear for the first time who the senator and house representative is for my district.
Friends who studied Political Science and History: Understanding the system through conversations is important as you gain insight and not just information. Knowing how things are isn’t always enough. Understanding how they came to be can provide you perspective to make more informed decisions.
Podcasts: I have a few that I have been listening to already and a few that are new to me but serve as good resources. My homie Jason Goff co-host this awesome podcast called Election College.
YouTube: I’ve found a couple of channels such as Crash Course Government (provides short 10 minute or less lessons on how our government works. I could do without the dude who is always punching the eagle–you’ll see what I mean— but overall it’s a good show). I also used YouTube to research and listen to a talk from the author of this book, “White Trash: The 400 year untold history of class in america,“(aff. link) by Nancy Isenberg. Interest in this book came as a recommmendation from a podcast I listen to. Interest was ignited with all of the talk about the white working class during this election. This HBR article, “What so Many People Don’t get About the U.S. Working Class,” provided another perspective and separated the poor from the working class for me.
I will end it here with a note to be good to yourself and take care. You can’t help anyone else if you are sick and out of the game. Figure out what taking care of yourself looks like for you and do it….PLEASE!
With Ambassadorly Love,
Mike Ambassador Bruny
Founder of No More Reasonable Doubt
www.NoMoreReasonableDoubt.com
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